Oregon Offense Struggles, Fall to Beavers In Series Sweep

Goss Stadium in Corvallis has been a House of Horrors for the Ducks ever since Oregon brought back baseball a decade ago. Unfortunately for the Ducks, 2018 isn’t any different.

The Beavers completed a weekend sweep of the Ducks with a huge 12-5 win in front of a record crowd of 3,800. The loss dropped Oregon to 6-12 in Pac-12 play and just 19-18 overall. Meanwhile, Oregon State moved to 10-5 in conference action and an amazing 29-6 for the season.

Oregon’s offensive woes plagued the Ducks for the entire series as they scored a grand total of four runs in the three-game set. Luke Heimlich out-dueled Matt Mercer in the opener by whiffing 12 batters in the 5-2 win on Thursday.

It was the same story on Friday as Beavers starter Bryce Fehmel out-pitched Oregon starter Kenyon Yovan in the 2-1 OSU victory. Yovan threw seven innings, giving up five hits and two runs, but the Duck bats couldn’t solve Fehmel. He threw 7.1 innings, allowing three hits and no runs. Oregon managed a run in the eighth off of reliever Dylan Pearce to make it 2-1, but Jake Mulholland came into the ninth to shut the door for his 11th save of the season.

After two relative close games that went the Beavers’ way, the hinges came off for Oregon in the series finale.

Kolby Somers just didn’t have it on the mound as the Beavers jumped all over the freshman from Portland with a three-run homer in the first inning. Oregon State hit another homer in the third and by the time George Horton went to the mound to pull his starter, the Beavers were up 6-0. They scored three more in the inning to take a 9-0 lead and eventually the seven-run win.

Down 11-1 in the seventh, Oregon finally dented the scoreboard with three runs in the seventh. Gabe Matthews laced a two-run double to cut into the deficit, but the Beavers’ lead was just way too big to overcome.

Oregon will try to pull things together Wednesday to take on Portland before opening up a weekend series with USC. The Trojans are 6-10 in conference play and 18-16 overall with one more game against UCLA on Sunday.